Mental Illness During Criminal Trials

After followingf the Braunstein case in the news, I hav eto say hwo disgusted I am that all it takes for a defense team to keep their client out of jail to is prove that he's not mentally stable.

I don't understnad why a person who committed a violent crime, especially murder or rape, gets to avoid normal deserved punishments becuase some shrink theys they are schizo. EVERY murderer and rapist is mentally ill! It's a given. Mentally same and healthy people do not knock out women and rape them.

I also thinkof the Wendys massacre from the late 90s, where one of the two murderers escaped the death sentence for being retarded....when he wasnn't....he was just really stupid. Seriously.

I think it's time that these laws that only protect the criminals be modified. It goesback to the accountibility issues that we have here. We need to make sure that we are blamign the right people, and fully applying the law to them.

hey i agree, they are unnatural but it has to be proven with physical evidence, like MRI or CAT scans

Phil's point is really an interesting one. These issues always bothered me as well. - even apart from the matter of legal defense teams getting unworthy criminals off the hook.

The logic seems to generally go along the lines of someone not being (to *some* extent "aware" or what they are doing - and able to premeditate... I know, I know.. something like that.)

And, of course, even those individuals we might all agree on who are clearly out of their mind, unfortunately often slip back into madness and commit more atrocities.

There was a man - Larry Hogue I think was his name.. the used to terrorize one block in Manhattan - picking up bricks and throwing them at people etc. He was dubbed the "Wild Man of XXX" whatever the name of the cross street was... He would smoke crack and go crazy and become violent, and then get locked up, but then return to being the sweetest guy in the world (or so we are told). The judge and doctors kept releasing him. Over and over.

The New York Post exposed this situation and kept hammering it home embarrassing the powers that be until it got some attention. (Those were the days the Post really earned its keep regardless of its reputation)

But it begs the question - Is someone - like Osama Bin Laden for instance - clinically psychotic or not? Probably not.

In the end, its all a spider web of Psychology and Law - so we should expect nonsense in the end.

Tom